You can’t object, we did a consultation.

This comic is in response to the news that squatting residential buildings is to be criminalised, despite a public consultation in which 96% of replies were negative, including those from The Law Society, The Metropolitan Police, The Criminal Bar Association, The Magistrates Association, Crisis, Shelter, 160 legal experts, plus academics, journalists and squatters themselves. Objections said that squatting is inevitable, and in many cases necessary, that criminalising puts poor and vulnerable people at risk, and anyway, criminal damage and entering property that’s intended to be used is already a crime.

The process of taking the change through Parliament was also enormously undemocratic, as described here – the clause was tacked onto a bulky criminal bill just three days before it went through the Commons, and amendments were so far down the list that debates about the clause were always late at night and poorly attended.

I’ve visited and helped out with a number of squats, and they’ve always been wonderful, welcoming places making great use of abandoned buildings.